The Montreal Canadiens, per EPRinkside writer and analyst JFresh, will finish last in the Atlantic Division. His advanced analytics model has the Canadiens finishing the season with 82 points as the seventh worst team in the NHL.
The Canadiens ended last season with a 40-31-11 record, finishing off the year with 91 points and a playoff berth. Rookie defenseman Lane Hutson won the Calder Trophy as the best rookie of the year.
This offseason, they acquired Noah Dobson and Zac Bolduc, bolstering their offense and defense. To top it all off, they enter 2025-26 with a full season of highly-touted prospect Ivan Demidov. The Canadiens don’t appear ready to slow down anytime soon. Yet, despite this, JFresh’s analytics model places the Canadiens squarely at the bottom of division standings.
Caveats to Analytics Model
It’s important to note that the advanced analytics model comes with a handful of caveats. “This is based on current depth charts (from NHLRosters),” JFresh said on his X post. “Injuries/games played aren’t projected except for some guys who are out months (like Matthew Tkachuk). Rookies are at 0 WAR because I don’t have data on them and I don’t want to just guess (so Demidov, Nikishin, etc.)”
Demidov played seven games last season: two in the regular season and five in the playoffs. He secured his first goal and assist in the regular season, ending the year with two points in two games. He managed just two assists in five playoff games. It remains to be seen what kind of player Demidov will become, but his 0 WAR plays a significant role in the Habs’ low standings.
“Model doesn’t have anything on Demidov which is obviously a wild card,” JFresh added later.
Canadiens Low Ranking Unsurprising to JFresh
JFresh, on the other hand, doesn’t find the fact that the Habs are ranked low unsurprising. “Habs were not good last year and snuck into the playoffs with a -20 goal differential which usually gets a team 84 points,” he wrote.
To make matters worse, JFresh notes that the Habs had an even worse expected goals metric. Per MoneyPuck, the Canadiens had an expected goals rating of just 46.99%, landing 28th in the NHL. Expected goals, per Inside the Rink, are “used to isolate the evaluation of play-driving and chance-creation/suppression ability from things a player cannot control such as bounces, quality of goaltender.”
Expected goals percentages are taken from public data provided by the NHL. It’s used to calculate the probability of a goal. When matched up with the -20 goal differential, it’s clear why JFresh isn’t as high on the Habs as the rest of the league.
He also went on to note that the team’s underlying numbers were far from ideal. The team’s Corsi For percentage, per MoneyPuck, once again placed the Habs at 28th in the NHL. Corsi For tracks shot quality and differential from team to team. A poor Corsi For percentage means that the Habs were consistently outshot and responded with lower quality shots in return.
Still, it’s important to note that advanced analytics don’t tell a full story — they merely paint a picture.
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